'Is this…is this Jude?', she asked in a high-pitched voice she almost did not recognize as her own. The question was rhetorical despite the interrogation mark which closed her words. She got no confirmation for response but it wasn't like she really needed or expected it from her speaker. Nevertheless, a thousand of questions welled up in the forefront of her mind. What happened? Where was Robert? What was she doing there, in his house, at four in the morning? Why the hell wasn't he with her? And that crying…her crying… Nonononononononononononoitcouldn'tmeanNonononononoo….
Alison was struck dumb but she listened to the trembling voice that had began talking, so weakly and hoarsely that it seemed to come from another galaxy, miles away, instead of a local Purgatory across the bridge. Jude's tone faltered and withered with every word. She spoke between whimpers and violent sobs and Alison couldn't make sense of many of the disconnected sentences due to the mutilating hiccoughs that had overtaken the other woman. However, the anguish and grief that rimmed what she was saying talked by themselves. No need to be a psychic to interpret the clear overwhelming meaning of her message, which stung in her heart like a dagger being twisted round and round through the five year-old scars that criss-crossed her belly.
'A couple of nights ago… after being at your house.' The younger woman couldn't have thrown a more resentful and callous reproach at her. Still, Jude kept going and she refrained from hanging up. 'He came back very late. I-I was asleep. Didn't think he would return. Got tired of waiting for him and imagined he had preferred to spend an overnight stay… at some other place.' Alison winced at the subtle but cynical insinuation. Another coup de grâce for he professor's wife. 'When I woke up to feed the baby…I f-I found him in the armchair at his study with a…sheet of paper fallen at his feet and his earphones on. He had probably been revising a list of songtitles and fell asleep. No surprise, with the Beatle's White Album to get him groggy…', she half-cried and laughed, possibly recalling some crazy anecdote revolving around walruses and Robert. 'He was sleeping. I thought he was. Perhaps that's why it took me so long to react. I don't know… I…I don't… just. He wouldn't respond. He wouldn't wake up when I slapped him and shook him. I thought I felt a pulse but wasn't sure. I thought he had just passed out because of the headaches. They had worsened. I knew even if he wouldn't tell me. I phoned the Emergency number and the ambulance arrived and they couldn't revive him. Rushed him to the hospital. Doctors told me he had fallen into a coma. Nothing anyone could help with. I waited and waited. They told me he could wake up any minute, in years or maybe never again. That…damned thing, it had grown and spread- the tumour - and would get larger and increase the pressure inside his head until it compressed the vital parts of his brain. But then… he just stopped breathing. His heart failed him. And, oh…'. A little baby's crying joined his mother's morning and her own, the tragic soundtrack of that Greek elegy where they were all suffering life-changing losses. The loss of faith, trust and hope. The loss of the one love, of a caring father, a husband, a friend. Jude tried to placate her son by humming softly an improvised tune. Alison imagined she would be rocking the child almost hysterically, as if balancing movement on the ball of her feet could soothe her too. Shh-shh, as she carried on with her tale and catharsis. 'He had to be intubated and connected to life-support but it was useless… Robert…Robert's died tonight.' The world spinned and spiralled out of his axis. 'Tomorrow is the funeral service. At Rendland Chappel, just like he arranged it. Well, he arranged practically everything, even the stupid funeral music. It was what he had been picking up that night…', her laugh broke into a million pieces. It was angry and embittered. 'I imagine he would have wished you to be there. He…he left you something else at home too. You must know… that he appreciated you fondly. So much that he broke his promise to me and ignored my ultimatum of not seeing you ever again…'.
Alison knew that she should send her condolences to the widow.
State that she felt the deepest sympathy for her loss.
That she was much sorrier than what she showed at the moment.
But everything around her, beyond herself and the telephone she was clinging to desperately, beyond the baby's crying in the boat-house… dissolved into a vortex of helplessness, hurt and resent against Robert, God and the Universe.
She murmured a feeble 'I'm sorry – I'll try to be there' but it carried much less conviction that what she had intended, and then cut off the call.
Her eyes were rimmed in red, and bloodshot, but dry and her back cracked audibly when she changed her pose. Yet, she did not feel the pain nor the cold, only the devastating emptiness which expanded in front of her, that feeling of numbness, of sorrow that she had never experienced, not even when her dear Auntie Vi, who always was like a mother to her, passed away. Alison went trough the motions of breathing, blinking and getting up from the floor on shaky legs. She lurched sideways, like a zombie from one of those old Hammer classic films, when seeking refuge in the sanctuary of her kitchen and the solitude and safety bubble drunkenness provided.
She helped herself a decent number of glasses and sat down at the table with the stiffness of an obedient private-schooled girl at Christmas Eve Family Dinner. Perhaps if she got drunk enough, if she stayed silent and dead-still she could imagine or pretend that he was still alive and would call her back while munching cereals for breakfast. Perhaps, if she resisted the temptation of drinking till she got alcohol poisoning she would be the one to wake up from that horrible, horrible nightmare. Perhaps she would hear the bell ringing at the main door, open the door and see Robert again, standing under the early morning light, smelling of after-shave and cologne, and anxious to get her to talk and discuss the topic of a new chapter for the book he was working so hard on.
But our loved ones (oh, and she had learnt that lesson well), wouldn't and couldn't come back from the afterlife even if that was the only wish you had in life. Despite the sacrifices you made or how much you prayed to God and all his saints… there were certain natural laws regarding Life and Death that prevailed over dreams and love.
Far from being warmed up by the dose of alcohol pumping through her veins, the room had got colder all of a sudden and dawn seemed to delay the arrival of a new day deliberately, making that night a hell of dark eternity. There, bent over herself and bottles of wine and brandy, the pathetic caricature of the woman called Alison Mundy counted the minutes, sip by sip, as she watered down the strength of the liquor with more tears.
'You should not drink this much, Alison.' She lost control of her fingers and the glass slipped from them. It gravitated in the air and fell, breaking with a loud crash. No. No. No. Alison closed her eyes but felt the prickle in them and the wine pooling on the table, dripping on the immaculate floor. There was throat-clearing sound behind her back and the soft pressure of a hand upon her shoulder. Colder than the night, than the rainstorm she felt raging inside. Cold as only Death could be. 'Not even for me…'.
